Andover News One of the ZD sites. Home for pundit Jesse Berst. Recommended for a fast read every morning. 

• CNet Breaking computer news. Often first with the news. Sometimes not as accurate or thorough in their reporting as we'd like. 

• San Jose Mercury From its home in Silicon Valley, the San Jose Mercury newspaper keeps on top of the technical news coming from the many computer industry companies that are headquartered there. 

• Slashdot Main thrust is Open Source and Linux. Updated often during the day. Recent changes allow users to limit their views of comments attached to each link to only the higher ranked ones. 

• The Register Good news site. Based in the UK. Updated continually. Short, hard-hitting blurbs. Had some of the best researched Microsoft trial items on the net. 

• Wired News Good breaking computer news site that is updated frequently during the day. 

• ZDNet Good, breaking news reported by their far-flung stable of ZD electronic and print reporters. 

• Caldera Systems The latest Caldera Linux distribution is getting good press for being easy to install on the desktop - without having to ever go to the command line. 

• Debian GNU-Linux One of the original Linux distributions. Not as newbie friendly as some of the other distributions. 

• Linux-Mandrake Relatively new Linux distribution offering easy installation. 

• Linux Mall Sells various Linux distributions and accessories. 

• Linux Systems Lab Sells various Linux distributions and accessories. 

• O'Reilly Largest publisher of books on all aspects of Open Source software. 

• Pacific Hi Tech Originator of the TurboLinux distribution. 

• Penguin Computing Computer hardware vendor offering servers, workstations and desktops with Linux preloaded. 

• Red Hat Currently the most popular Linux distribution. 

• S.u.S.E. Europe's most popular Linux distribution due to its extended language support. Based in Germany. Link is in English. German link here. 

• VA Research Computer hardware vendor offering servers, workstations and destops with Linux preloaded.

• Homesteading the Noosphere In this followup to the C&B (above), Raymond examines in detail the property and ownership customs of the open-source culture. 

• Is Red Hat Becoming the MS of Open Systems- Excellent Salon article that compares Red Hat and Microsoft. 

• Liberal Source Software Paul Johnson's essay discusses the closed source and open source worlds and proposes a new model which combines the best of both. 

• The Cathedral and Bazaar Eric Raymond's famous analysis of how and why the Linux development model works. This paper was responsible for much of the recent surge in Open Source awareness. 

• The Halloween Documents Here are all four of the "leaked" Microsoft documents with Eric Raymond's comments interspersed. 

• The Magic Cauldron In this latest white paper, Eric Raymond examines the economics and business models of open and closed source software. 

• The Rising Impact of Open Source A good overview of the open source situation, written by an investment guru.

• Apache The Apache Project is a robust, commercial-grade, and freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server. 

• Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, understanding, and modification of computer programs. 

• FreeBSD FreeBSD is an advanced BSD Unix operating system for PO-compatible computers. 

• GLUE GLUE (Groups of Linux Users Everywhere) is an umbrella group for LUGs (Linux User Groups). You'll be able to find a local LUG from the directory on this site. 

• GNU The GNU project has developed a complete free software system named "GNU" (GNU's Not Unix) that is upwardly compatible with Unix. 

• Linux Center The Linux Center project is a thematical index of Web pages about the Linux operating system, its applications, and free software in general. 

• Linux.org The starting point for any information regarding the Linux operating system. 

• Mozilla Home for Netscape's Open Source experiment. 

• Open Source Initiative OSI is the keeper of the Open Source trademark and arbitrator for Open Source licenses. OSI's president is Eric Raymond, who is often acts as the OS spokesman. 

• Perl Institute Information site for Perl, the scripting language that acts as "the glue" for the internet. 

• Tcl-Tk Consortium Tcl is a high-level programming language; Tk is a graphical user interface (GUI) toolkit. Together they provide a powerful way to develop graphical user interfaces. 

• Allyn and Bacon Public speaking website. 

• Career Planning Skills From Dawn McKay, About.com guide for Career Planning 

• Compton's Encyclopedia Definition and history of public speaking. 

• Environment Centre of Western Australia Ten tips for confident speaking. 

• Essential Training (Singapore) Thirty public speaking tips. 

• Matthew Stern Index to public speaking and tech writing tips 

• Patricia Fripp Excellent tips on developing and delivering your speech. 

• Presentation Solutions Excellent page with tips on speaking, visuals, etc. 

• Presenters Online. Tips and hints for preparing visuals. 

• Toastmasters International World wide organziation devoted to communications and leadership training. 

• University of Kansas Virtual Presentation Assistant - index to public speaking information 

• C++ Programming Standards Used by Canada's Mount Allison Unversity. 

• Coding Standards About.com's Computer Science guide J.D. Baker has links to many other coding standards. 

• Email Cobol Coding Standards As used by UCLA's Administrative Information Systems 

• Fortran 90 Standards European Standards For Writing and Documenting Exchangeable Fortran 90 Code. 

• GNU Programming Standards Utah University's Computer Science department standards. 

• NASA Standards Index of standards used for computer software by NASA 

• Object-C Coding Style From the ART - Advanced Rendering Toolkit - at the Vienna University of Technology's Institute of Computer Graphics. 

• Perl Standards Perl coding standards/practices and coding conventions from the EOS DIS Design Manual. 

• Visual Basic Standards Jose's Programming Standards and Guidelines offers good entry level advice.

• Abbott, Langer & Associates IT pay by skill set report. (US $750) 

• BrainBuzz.com Job search site with Dowden & Co. salary surveys free on-line. 

• DataMasters Computer Industry salary surveys. 

• Delphi World Salary information by country and by state 

• Home Fair Real time calculator to show the differences in standard of living between many cities in the U.S. and abroad. 

• Information Week's 1999 Survey Covers all areas of the IT community. 

• InfoWorld's 1999 Survey December 1999 updated version 

• Real Rates Compilation of actual salaries paid to IT professionals. 

• C++ in Hypertext A complete book/tutorial for learning the C++ programming language. This site is typical of what one can find on the net with the a targeted search. 

• Introduction to Java DevCentral's introduction to the Java programming language and applet coding. 

• JavaScript 101 Tutorial From the ZDNet Devhead site, a beginning JavaScript Tutoral. 

• Linux as Network Glue This short tutorial shows how to use a cheap Linux box as a router and firewall to tie things together. 

• Netscape's Composer Tutorial Even your non-programmers can learn how to use Composer to create web pages for your intranet using this. 

• PHP-MySQL Tutorial Webmonkey's intro tutorial to PHP and MySQL. Includes how-to-install information. 

• User Active University Offers courses in conjunction with the University of Illinois. Take a test drive. We're impressed with their unique split screen approach for their student interface. 

• XML Tutorial for Programmers Good online introduction to and tutorial on XML. 

• ZDU Take as many classes via the internet as you wish for one low fee (<$8/mo). This is one of the best training values on the net. 

• Apple Apple's voice recognition and text to speech information. 

• Dragon Systems, Inc. NaturallySpeaking product line of voice recognition products. 

• IBM ViaVoice voice recognition products 

• Lernout & Hauspie-Kurzweil Voice Xpress voice recognition products. Also offers translation software. 

• Philips PC and telephony voice products. 

• PhoneAssistant Telephone speech recognition software from BrightArrow Technologies.